Department of Health and Social Care

Electronic Cigarettes

Preet Kaur Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people who use vapes (a) as an aide to stop smoking cigarettes and (b) who did not previously smoke by (i) age, (ii) gender, (iii) ethnicity, (iv) socio-economic status and (v) integrated care system (A) location and (B) sub-location.

Neil O'Brien: The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

General Practitioners

Alison McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is his Department's policy that a patient's GP practice be informed if that patient visits different hospitals in the same NHS trust with similar illnesses or injuries.

Neil O'Brien: A patient’s general practice (GP) would usually be informed when they attended hospital, either via a discharge letter, or via a notification on an electronic patient record system. This is dependent on the National Health Service trust knowing the patient’s registered GP. A patient may object to the sharing of their information with their GP when visiting a trust, for example when attending accident and emergency, and the trust will need to follow data protection legislation and guidance to determine whether it is in its best interests to still share this with the patient’s GP.

Dental Services: County Durham

Dehenna Davison: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of NHS dental appointments in County Durham.

Neil O'Brien: In July 2022 we announced a package of reforms to improve access to National Health Service dentistry, which outlined the steps we are taking to meet oral health need and increase access to dental care, including in County Durham. The changes that have been implemented include improvements to ensure dentists are remunerated more fairly for more complex work and the introduction of a minimum Units of Dental Activity value.From 1 April 2023, responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment.The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published on 30 June 2023, sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. These include a 40% increase to dentistry undergraduate training places by 2031/32.But we know we need to do more, and that there are some areas where access is particularly problematic. We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan which will address how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver more NHS care.

General Practitioners

Mrs Helen Grant: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to improve patient access to GP appointments.

Neil O'Brien: We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice (GP) teams, some patients are still struggling to access care in a timely way. That is why we have published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. The plan has two central ambitions: to tackle the 8am rush and reduce the number of people struggling to contact their practice, and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice how their request will be managed.We will achieve this by rolling out new digital tools and telephone systems which can help practices to better match their capacity to patient demand, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding. The plan also includes further measures to empower patients to do more themselves, cut bureaucracy for GPs and build capacity to deliver more appointments; and we are investing at least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 by increasing and diversifying the workforce.

Home Office

Immigration: Artificial Intelligence

Alex Davies-Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department has used to train AI systems used in immigration decision-making; and if she will publish that data.

Chris Philp: In the areas of immigration, immigration intelligence and immigration enforcement, we do not use machine learning or other forms of artificial intelligence to make decisions on whether to grant or refuse leave, or to take immigration enforcement action.Where such algorithmic tools are used within business processes, they will be typically trained on the data used in the business process itself.To safeguard our operations, we do not routinely publish the data that is used and for external providers it will depend on their development processes.

Investigations after Police Use of Force Review

Bell Ribeiro-Addy: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the terms of reference for the review of investigatory arrangements which follow police use of force and police driving related incidents 2023, published on 24 October 2023, what assessment she has made of (a) the adequacy of the length of time provided for responses and (b) the potential impact of that length of time on the number of submissions that will be received.

Chris Philp: It is critical that the review is carried out at pace to ensure the clarity and confidence of both officers and the public in the investigatory system relating to police use of force and police driving related incidents.Given the urgent need for this review, the Government believes that the timeframe which we have allowed for gathering evidence from a wide range of stakeholders is appropriate.Officials are proactively engaging a wide range of organisations in relation to the issues covered by the Terms of Reference, to ensure a balanced evidence base underpins the reviews’ findings.

Cabinet Office

Coronavirus: Oldham

Jim McMahon: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many deaths in care homes relating to covid-19 were registered in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in each month since January 2020.

Jeremy Quin: The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 7 November is attached.UK Statistics Authority (pdf, 121.4KB)

Department for Education

Apprentices: Taxation

Simon Jupp: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make an estimate of the potential impact on (a) the apprenticeship budget and (b) apprenticeship starts of permitting levy-payers to spend (i) 25% and (ii) 50% of their apprenticeship levy accounts on non-apprenticeship training.

Robert Halfon: In the last two financial years, an average 98% of the English apprenticeships budget was spent. The apprenticeships budget in England is ring-fenced for apprenticeships only and is used to fund training and assessment for all employers, both those who pay the levy and those who do not. It is therefore important that the apprenticeships budget remains ring-fenced for apprenticeships to ensure continued affordability of the programme and to ensure that employers of all sizes, including small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that do not pay the levy, can continue to access high-quality apprenticeships training.If employers were able to use 25% of their levy funds for non-apprenticeships training, the department estimates that this would create an additional cost of up to approximately £700 million per annum. Allowing employers to use up to 50% of their funds for non-apprenticeship training would increase this cost to up to £1.5 billion per annum. Without making additional funding available to support this flexible use of levy funds, the department estimates that this would require a significant reduction in new apprenticeship starts to approximately 140,000 per annum. This is around a 60% decrease on the 350,000 apprenticeship starts reported for the 2021/22 academic year.The apprenticeship levy was introduced to increase employer investment in high-quality apprenticeships training, and with the intention that large employers’ levy contributions would fund access to apprenticeships for all employers. The Government wants to support SMEs across England to offer more apprenticeship opportunities and so in April we removed the restriction on the number of apprentices SMEs can recruit. The department continues to pay for 95% of the apprentice training costs for SMEs, rising to 100% for the smallest employers recruiting apprentices under the age of 19.Employers can already choose to spend their levy funds on any of the 680 plus apprenticeship standards available, or to transfer 25% of their funds to support apprenticeships in other businesses. They can also benefit from a range of other government-funded skills programmes, including skills bootcamps, higher technical qualifications and T Level industry placements.